I have organized my move into phases
Phase 1: Get out of High Level
Phase 2: Get to Courtenay
Phase 3: Find daycare and job
Phase 4: Heal
I am all set to move into my new house this Friday. I have co-ordinated my trailer to move my things from the storage unit to my house in Courtenay. I rented a U-haul in High Level to move every thing down a couple of weeks ago and when I reserved the exact same trailer to move the Vancouver Island I found it was twice the price. The man on the other end of the phone at 1-800-U-HAUL told me it has to do with where you are taking the trailer and availability at the destination. I guess a lot of people take things over to the island but not as much comes back. I don't really know but I am not happy about the extra expense.
I plan on loading up the trailer tomorrow night, then grabbing my bestie after work Friday and heading over to the Island. I am borrowing a bunch of furniture from my parents as their house is under renovation and they have to store it all for two months anyway. My Dad will arrive Saturday morning with Abby and we will use the trailer to pick up the borrowed furniture. Everyone is staying at my house for the weekend then they will head back Sunday and Abby and I will be in our new home.
That will be phase 2 complete, and my focus will shift into phase 3. I have already applied for a few jobs in a range of fields. I know I will land exactly where I am supposed to so I'm not stressing about it too much. I can easily find a service industry position, and hopefully a better paying one. For now, for the short term I just need any job that pays over a certain threshold. Once there is money coming in I can relax a little and look for something I actually want to do.
A new problem has arisen: I need new tires. One of the front tires on my car is bulging out on the sides and I am apprehensive about pulling a heavy trailer up the island on it. I priced out 2 tires and am not looking forward to the price tag. It is an extra expense I guess I will have to work in somehow, on top of the extra moving expenses I am stressing a little.
I have to remind myself that even though I am not starting from scratch, building a life takes time and to just do the best I can do today. I have done all the things I need for right now, and all the things I can do today and I need to be at peace with that and remember it will all happen in time.
Wednesday, 26 March 2014
Monday, 24 March 2014
A new home
I got one step forward in the right direction today and sent the damage deposit and first months rent to my new landlord for our new home. My Dad was in Courtenay this weekend and agreed to meet the landlord for me and hand over the money. I had decided on a 2 bedroom second floor condo in a nice quiet residential neighbourhood.
While he was there the lady from the property management company showed him a different one that was about $100 more but twice the size and a million times better. He reported back to me with his findings insisting that it was the better choice. I googled the address and found the real estate listing (it was just bought by the landlord and I am their first tenant) so I could see pictures. I was sold immediately. It is everything I wanted that I didn't even want to look for because I thought I couldn't afford it. I am organizing all my stuff and people to move this weekend as it is vacant and clean and ready for us to move in!
I will post pictures on here when we get over there, it is not a townhouse and not a condo is all I want to say right now. It is a little more than I had wanted to spend but I thought I would take it and see how it goes, if I am over-extended then I will have to downsize but it is the kind of home I wanted for Abby so I am going to work hard to give it to her. We will be happy there for several years, maybe as long as it takes to get my degree.
Normally when one is looking for somewhere to live you have an income and know what you can afford. I will be looking for a job once I'm over there so I am working out a budget based on what I made before I went on maternity leave. I am hoping to make more than that but if I return to that wage or close to I will be ok. I don't have much wiggle room in the budget for new furniture, at least not for the first couple of months, so it is actually good timing that my parents are renovating their house in Comox.
They have had to put all of their furniture in storage and wont need any of it for several months which means I have lots of time to comb Craigslist for appropriate furnishings. I'm kind of happy to do it that way. I love the idea of spending as little as possible, and being able to refinish, repaint or whatever to make things my own. I have some ideas I would like to try out. It also means that they need somewhere to stay every couple of weeks or so while they supervise the work on their house, and my new abode has plenty of room.
I am excited to get back to work. It has been wonderful to be able to extend my maternity leave and have a year and a half to focus on raising my daughter. I think she is better for it, but now is a good time for her to start daycare. She loves hanging out with other kids and loves to do things and be busy. Her and I have a wonderful close bond yet she is comfortable to be away from me and doesn't panic or freak out at all. I looked into some daycares and found there is subsidy available from the government for people just like me.
I think there should be help available for everyone, one of the barriers for a lot of women in their career is finding affordable daycare. If I still lived with my husband I would not qualify for assistance because he makes too much money. So paying for daycare would suck up so much money it's almost not worth it. A lot of women (and some men, there are more and more men staying home with the kids these days) sacrifice their own goals for their family. Subsidized, government daycare would even things up for everyone.
Next week I have to find daycare and then a job. Hopefully by the end of April I will have all the pieces in place and I can focus on some inner healing. I'm really looking forward to being at work all day, hanging out with Abby, having dinner, putting her to bed and relaxing in the evening. I am aiming for peace and calm in my life.
While he was there the lady from the property management company showed him a different one that was about $100 more but twice the size and a million times better. He reported back to me with his findings insisting that it was the better choice. I googled the address and found the real estate listing (it was just bought by the landlord and I am their first tenant) so I could see pictures. I was sold immediately. It is everything I wanted that I didn't even want to look for because I thought I couldn't afford it. I am organizing all my stuff and people to move this weekend as it is vacant and clean and ready for us to move in!
I will post pictures on here when we get over there, it is not a townhouse and not a condo is all I want to say right now. It is a little more than I had wanted to spend but I thought I would take it and see how it goes, if I am over-extended then I will have to downsize but it is the kind of home I wanted for Abby so I am going to work hard to give it to her. We will be happy there for several years, maybe as long as it takes to get my degree.
Normally when one is looking for somewhere to live you have an income and know what you can afford. I will be looking for a job once I'm over there so I am working out a budget based on what I made before I went on maternity leave. I am hoping to make more than that but if I return to that wage or close to I will be ok. I don't have much wiggle room in the budget for new furniture, at least not for the first couple of months, so it is actually good timing that my parents are renovating their house in Comox.
They have had to put all of their furniture in storage and wont need any of it for several months which means I have lots of time to comb Craigslist for appropriate furnishings. I'm kind of happy to do it that way. I love the idea of spending as little as possible, and being able to refinish, repaint or whatever to make things my own. I have some ideas I would like to try out. It also means that they need somewhere to stay every couple of weeks or so while they supervise the work on their house, and my new abode has plenty of room.
I am excited to get back to work. It has been wonderful to be able to extend my maternity leave and have a year and a half to focus on raising my daughter. I think she is better for it, but now is a good time for her to start daycare. She loves hanging out with other kids and loves to do things and be busy. Her and I have a wonderful close bond yet she is comfortable to be away from me and doesn't panic or freak out at all. I looked into some daycares and found there is subsidy available from the government for people just like me.
I think there should be help available for everyone, one of the barriers for a lot of women in their career is finding affordable daycare. If I still lived with my husband I would not qualify for assistance because he makes too much money. So paying for daycare would suck up so much money it's almost not worth it. A lot of women (and some men, there are more and more men staying home with the kids these days) sacrifice their own goals for their family. Subsidized, government daycare would even things up for everyone.
Next week I have to find daycare and then a job. Hopefully by the end of April I will have all the pieces in place and I can focus on some inner healing. I'm really looking forward to being at work all day, hanging out with Abby, having dinner, putting her to bed and relaxing in the evening. I am aiming for peace and calm in my life.
Friday, 21 March 2014
Daddy Time
Before I left High Level I was trying to secure a townhouse so I had somewhere to go immediately. During all of the packing, and the arguing, and the trying to work things out, (working it out meaning mutually agreeing to not work it out right now). I have been carrying around a heavy bowling ball in my stomach of anxiety. When I am stressed this is how I feel it. It disturbs my digestion, I don't feel like eating and I need help to sleep. I am distracted, easily unnerved and irritable. Yesterday that feeling lifted a little as I have almost secured a lovely home for my daughter and I.
Damage and first months rent will be paid tomorrow and I will have somewhere to rest my head that is my own. It is not the townhouse I was hoping for but more of a condo. The price is right, the location is great (there is a Starbucks a few blocks away) so I am feeling much better about things.
Today my husband will take our daughter for a "visit". That feels really weird. I don't like the words "custody" and "visitation", they make parenting sound like a chore or something that has boundaries. He has never actually had her on his own for an entire afternoon like this which also feels weird. Since I was at home with her and he has been working so much it has just never worked out that I had anywhere to go by myself for an entire afternoon in High Level, and he was hardly home or awake long enough anyway since he worked nights for the last six months or so. They will be apart for months coming up and if the situation were reversed and I didn't see her for months I think I would die a little inside, or at the very least carry around a big ball of anxiety in my stomach.
She loves her Dad. The love of an 18 month old girl towards her father is such a pure beautiful thing. He would sleep during the day and she would point upstairs and ask "Dada?" She would sneak into our room, climb on the bed and wake him up at any opportunity, and when I went to retrieve her she would yell "Dada!" and cling to him, so proud she had found him and not willing to give him up. Today he held her and she just leaned on him and cuddled. No one will ever love him as much as she does, and he doesn't even have to do anything. her love is completely unconditional.
I want a cohesive, whole, family unit for her. I want her to know she is standing on something solid. We can do that apart but it will take work, and patience and love just like it does when parents are together. It was hard to look in his eyes today, knowing where we have been and not knowing where we are going. He will leave for a couple of months tomorrow and I don't know when she will see him again.
Thursday, 20 March 2014
A new start
I am turning my life upside down once again and moving to a new town. I am separating from my husband of (almost) 4 years. Before I was with him I had a boyfriend for over seven years, and I sort of overlapped the two of them by a day or so. Since I moved in with that boyfriend very young I have not so far at the age of 31 lived on my own as an adult for any significant amount of time. I have never built a life for myself without having to consider someone else's life, opinions, goals, or feelings. I have tried to fit my life in the cracks of someone else's life and it is not working. I'm not getting anywhere personally. There are things I want to do in my life that I have wanted to do for years that there just never seems to be time for.
I don't blame these two men. I blame myself for allowing it to happen. (twice) I thought playing the role of dutiful supportive wife was a noble position to be in. I never wanted to lose everything and become some sort of martyr. I thought there would be time for what I wanted, and maybe there would be but I am too impatient, I cant put myself aside anymore.
I want to know who I am without someone else. I want to step into my own life and know what the walls look like. How can I merge my life with someone else when I have not defined in my own mind what that is? Who I am? My sense of self is confused, not lost, just confused.
When I left my long term boyfriend I had not wanted to jump into a relationship right away. I was looking forward to making a life for myself. I had dreams of trying out a vegan lifestyle and kayaking with killer whales and doing yoga outside. I planned to get on top of some debts I acquired in my early twenties when I had still not quite wrapped my head around the idea of long term consequences. I wanted to make a home for myself without having someone critique the tea towels I had selected. Things happened quickly with the man that would become my husband, we were so in love and he quickly set about giving me all the things I thought I had wanted with the previous man. A house, a dog, a ring on my finger and a few years later the most beautiful daughter in the world. I did want all those things but I never forgot about the idea of standing on my own two feet.
There was never room for me to get back on my feet as an individual within my marriage. There are a lot of reasons for this, I will focus on the ones I can control. What I could have done differently was "pay myself first." I gave everything I had to my marriage and there was nothing left over for me. I didn't see marriage as 50/50. I saw it 100%/100%. We just didn't see it the same way and I got lost. I did not make myself a priority. I have learned that there are things I should not have been so willing to give up. I have made compromises that I thought I could live with, but I cant. Everyone makes compromises in marriage. We give up little things sometimes for the good of the big picture. I gave things up that I shouldn't have given up and I lost the gamble that it would all pay off in the end.
This new blog is going to be about building a life for myself and my daughter that belongs to us. We are moving to Vancouver Island close to where my grandparents lived (they are both now passed), and down the road from where I spent summer vacations my whole life until around age 20. My parents also have a house nearby they use for a reprieve from the city. I have so many happy memories here and when I was presented with the opportunity to make a home for myself anywhere I want without having to consider someone else's opinion, the choice to me was obvious. I have always wanted to live in the Comox Valley but no one has ever agreed to go with me.
I will be hopefully starting school in September and pursuing a degree I have wanted for too many years. I would be several years done if I had just started when I was first interested. I will never again leave my dreams behind for the sake of someone else's dreams.
I don't blame these two men. I blame myself for allowing it to happen. (twice) I thought playing the role of dutiful supportive wife was a noble position to be in. I never wanted to lose everything and become some sort of martyr. I thought there would be time for what I wanted, and maybe there would be but I am too impatient, I cant put myself aside anymore.
I want to know who I am without someone else. I want to step into my own life and know what the walls look like. How can I merge my life with someone else when I have not defined in my own mind what that is? Who I am? My sense of self is confused, not lost, just confused.
When I left my long term boyfriend I had not wanted to jump into a relationship right away. I was looking forward to making a life for myself. I had dreams of trying out a vegan lifestyle and kayaking with killer whales and doing yoga outside. I planned to get on top of some debts I acquired in my early twenties when I had still not quite wrapped my head around the idea of long term consequences. I wanted to make a home for myself without having someone critique the tea towels I had selected. Things happened quickly with the man that would become my husband, we were so in love and he quickly set about giving me all the things I thought I had wanted with the previous man. A house, a dog, a ring on my finger and a few years later the most beautiful daughter in the world. I did want all those things but I never forgot about the idea of standing on my own two feet.
There was never room for me to get back on my feet as an individual within my marriage. There are a lot of reasons for this, I will focus on the ones I can control. What I could have done differently was "pay myself first." I gave everything I had to my marriage and there was nothing left over for me. I didn't see marriage as 50/50. I saw it 100%/100%. We just didn't see it the same way and I got lost. I did not make myself a priority. I have learned that there are things I should not have been so willing to give up. I have made compromises that I thought I could live with, but I cant. Everyone makes compromises in marriage. We give up little things sometimes for the good of the big picture. I gave things up that I shouldn't have given up and I lost the gamble that it would all pay off in the end.
This new blog is going to be about building a life for myself and my daughter that belongs to us. We are moving to Vancouver Island close to where my grandparents lived (they are both now passed), and down the road from where I spent summer vacations my whole life until around age 20. My parents also have a house nearby they use for a reprieve from the city. I have so many happy memories here and when I was presented with the opportunity to make a home for myself anywhere I want without having to consider someone else's opinion, the choice to me was obvious. I have always wanted to live in the Comox Valley but no one has ever agreed to go with me.
I will be hopefully starting school in September and pursuing a degree I have wanted for too many years. I would be several years done if I had just started when I was first interested. I will never again leave my dreams behind for the sake of someone else's dreams.
Saratoga beach where I spent all my summer vacations as a kid.
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